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Capsule carrying comet particles arrives in Houston
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-18 08:52

The Stardust space capsule arrived Tuesday at NASA's Johnson Space Center, where scientists plan to unlock its internal canister to analyze the first comet particles ever captured in space.

Technicians at Utah's Dugway Proving Ground had readied the capsule Monday for its trip to Houston after it survived a fiery plunge through the atmosphere early Sunday. It bounced three times in soft mud before coming to rest on its side.

The landing chipped off a piece of the spacecraft's heat shield, but the capsule and its canister were in otherwise good shape, said Joe Vellinga of Lockheed Martin, which built the capsule.

In its seven-year voyage, Stardust looped around the sun three times to capture interstellar dust particles. In 2004, the spacecraft also swooped past the comet Wild 2 and used a tennis-racket-sized mitt to collect more particles.

The particles are thought to be pristine leftovers from the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.



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